How Do You Deal With Your Childs Tantrums? | MyAutismTeam

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How Do You Deal With Your Childs Tantrums?
A MyAutismTeam Member asked a question πŸ’­

My almost 4 year old mild to moderate autistic child has violent outbursts.

He goes through periods where he tantrums off of everything. Example is he is hooked on doing the laundry. When he woke up this morning he asked to do the laundry. When I said there are no laundry to do, he got mad and started screaming and kicking. Last night he was using the iPad and had a 30 minute tantrum because we asked him to put down the ipad and take a bath.

Yesterday he fell asleep in class and when the… read more

posted September 16, 2014
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A MyAutismTeam Member

Our son who's 7 still has issues when we say no to him or tell him to do something. Major meltdowns! We now use a star system. When we say no and he is calm and asks why, he gets a star. Every 10 stars and he gets McDonalds. We also have a bead system. When we ask him to do something like get dressed, if he does it without fits (and without us repeating the order), he gets a bead. every ten beads, he gets gum. These two systems have helped A LOT with making him calm down in situations. He gets so excited to get beads and stars. I hope this helps!

posted September 22, 2014
A MyAutismTeam Member

Just wait it out and tell him how much you love him that it's o.k. He is o.k. When his understanding of the world gets better with age they do have tantrums less and less. My son is 14 and 4 seems like yesterday to me. He had daily tantrums and now once every 6 or 7 months. It's age and maturity. They understand so much more and they see themselves in control of more. Just ber patient with him. It's really hard I know.

posted September 17, 2014
A MyAutismTeam Member

@A MyAutismTeam Member A couple ideas come to mind.

Is he verbal, or does he have a preferred medium of communication (PECS, iPad, etc?). If so, often times there's something else going on that may or may not be related, and what seems to be the cause of the meltdown is simply the trigger for it.

But just as often, communication, of any form, doesn't work.

What works in our house are two different forms of setting expectations. One is a visual method, ie a calendar, and the other is a "first-then" agreement.

1. For visual expectations, a visual calendar is used, or other forms of visual props. For example, Little Bird is currently going through a phase of suffering from extreme indecision when it comes to breakfast, but she's also lately been very interested in restaurant behaviors (ie server coming to table and asking for order, the ordering process itself, looking at the receipt, handing credit card to server, etc). So we re-enact a restaurant scenario each morning with her, with a "custom menu" from "Ben's Famous Diner", which takes 10 seconds to make with a piece of folded paper and 3 menu items: waffles, cereal, scrambled eggs, and we take her order. It makes it fun and engaging and she's super into it.

2. For first-then situations, Little Bird may request something, like the iPad for instance, and the agreement is "first we practice spelling words, then we can play on the iPad". Or "first we eat dinner, and then we can watch a show". This works VERY often. So, if your son is fixated on laundry, perhaps using the laundry itself, even if none really *needs* to be done, as a motivator/reward?

3. Here's one last idea. We also have a 7-month old baby boy, J-Bird. Little Bird, who is 9, likes to engage him periodically, but doesn't always know how, so she reverts to squeezing his cheeks with one hand, in a playful way. But it can get to be a but much sometimes, so we'll say, "Alright [Little Bird], this is the last time we're going to pinch [J-Bird]'s cheeks, OK?" Surprisingly, this works very well. It also worked during her phase where she incessantly wanted me to speak like Oscar The Grouch to the point that my voice went hoarse, so we implemented the same tactic: "OK [Little Bird], but you only get one more time today for me to speak like Oscar The Grouch. You can use it now or later." Surprisingly, this also worked quite well, and made it more enjoyable to me too :-)

Hope this helps?

Ben

---
Birdhouse for Autism
http://birdhousehq.com

posted September 16, 2014
A MyAutismTeam Member

I think it is very important to provide a countdown. Based on your child's maturity and language level you are probably dealing with A) the fixation of Autism and B) the lack of being able to fully communicate feelings. I used to tell my child 5 min but that just became me 'telling' him yet another thing so I would give a choice. Bath in 5 or 10 min. You choose. Sometimes the answer would be three minutes and that was what I did. Now I even offer 5 min or 'now' and he often says now. It's all about 'control'. Sometimes if we ague about the 5 min and I finally say OK 5 min then he will say OK 'now'. Just demonstrating his desire to control his world. When the kids are delayed and have challenges in all aspects of their life, they just want to be able to control something and that is usually the people around them. I always give him the minutes he needs and the only time I don't is when I forget to give enough time. (My fault). As for leaving them alone, it is not recommended for our little kiddo's. They are already scared since they are in this uncontrolled state. Having multiple adults try to intervene in something they have no control over is even more scary. To put them by themselves leaves them feeling so alone in a time of need. I truly believe that is not the best approach for our little kiddo's. I get a blanket and wrap him up (like you would after a bath) and we just rock and snuggle till it's over. Blanket gives me a way to avoid being kicked and punched and feels soft and comforting to him. Then afterwards, we talk about it as best we can given temperament and willingness (usually very willing after a tantrum because they are so calm and exhausted) -- make sur you wait long enough and get confirmation they are OK now. Give compromise as often as possible and praise every time they do not have a tantrum when you think they could have. Positive reinforcement goes much further than negative reinforcement. Just love them and lead them. They will grow and follow. At least that is what I believe. I see growth already in my 6 year old. Do I still have a lot of tantrums in our home? Absolutely!!! They are getting better. Or, maybe I'm jus doing a better job of recognizing when he doesn't over react. Good luck!!!

posted September 18, 2014
A MyAutismTeam Member

@A MyAutismTeam Member this is probably my first post ever on mat.com... Anyhow, our son was diagnosed with ASD this past spring at the age of 6, but we have suspected he was on the spectrum for much longer. He was also diagnosed ADHD at the age of 3 (I have also been diagnosed with ADHD and would not be surprised to learn I am also on the spectrum). Your situation sounds a lot like ours prior to having a diagnosis...

We've gone through seasons with tantrums and meltdowns (which are different, btw and very hard to distinguish at times) with our son. He is in 1st grade this year and is REALLY struggling with the transition which has caused at least 4 significant meltdowns or tantrums to occur while at school. In our experience (and as someone mentioned, EVERY child, let alone every ASD child is different) it has become apparent that our son is severely affected by his environment. There are things going on within his head that we cannot see. He struggles with anxiety, which builds up over time and then completely blocks out his ability to effectively control his emotions. We've learned this because he knows a lot of calming techniques and can recite them back to us when he is 100% calm. But in the moment, he has absolutely zero control. There is one thing that has helped us recognize a tantrum from a meltdown. After a meltdown, if he is not back to 100% calm, anything can set him back off. Something as simple as asking him to pick up a wrapper off the floor. After he calms himself he will do it without an issue. Another way we can recognize the difference is that he has told us he does not remember what he did during the meltdown. He basically blacks out.

It has taken us months to get to this understanding of OUR son. We still don't have a scientific method for de-escalation (though we are much more successful at home than the school is), and the school with all of their excellent supports cannot get it down to a science either. We are in the infant stages of exploring medication for him to help manage the ADHD aspect, without adding anxiety (in fact we would like to reduce the anxiety)...

One thing that works the most, but can vary from episode to episode is putting our son in a room and allow him to calm on his own. The less we talk to him when he gets into his blackout phase, the better. We take everything out of his room if we have to. We also have had to lock the door at times. We find that the more we try to interact and inject reason into the situation, the worse it gets. It can take as little as a minute for him to calm, or as long as an hour! But you have to test for complete calmness in our son's case. If he is not 100% calm, you can expect another meltdown to occur for even the tiniest of request.

I am out of space, but suffice it to say - we feel your pain!

posted September 16, 2014

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